Crowded Inns
by gagethemage
Summary: A mother worries that her son will make the same mistakes she did.


I own nothing. This is simply a brief look inside Jennifer Taylor's head. I was pleased to discover a bit more than butterflies and a 'this space for rent' sign.  
  
Crowded Inns  
  
When I was 8, my teacher paired me up with my worst enemy, Sara Hudson, to work on a project. I was furious and went home stamping my feet and slamming the refrigerator door and in general being a total brat. I ranted to my mother over the unfairness of the situation for over an hour until she sighed and said to me "Sometimes crowded inns make strange bedfellows."  
  
I told her that I didn't understand. She replied "We don't always have the option of liking people we have to tolerate. It's just a fact of life. It doesn't mean we have to like those people, but sometimes you just have to buck up and make a place in your life for them, even if it's just for a little while."  
  
So Sara and I did our project, bickering the entire time. In a perfect world, we would have ended up best friends, but by the end of the assignment we hated each other worse than ever. However, we still managed to cooperate enough to get an A, so I decided that maybe my mother was right.  
  
I learned that lesson again, harder, when I got married.  
  
My husband's father had died when he was twelve, and his mother had raised him herself. Unlike Debbie, who encouraged Michael to be himself, my mother- in-law had a very clear idea of what Craig should be and who he was and what he should do. She ruled him with a fist of iron, and he loved her with the kind of affection most people reserve for deities. She could, in his eyes, do no wrong, commit no sin. Even belittling his wife, sometimes in public, was acceptable to him.  
  
I loved Craig though, at least in those days, and so I plastered a smile on my face and swallowed my words and refused to rise to her challenge. The nastier she became, the nicer I was, because it pissed the old bitch off like nothing else.  
  
I do have a perverse streak. I'm not very proud of that, but it's definitely there. I lived in fear of the day that Mother became unable to care for herself and moved in with us. I was going to get my blows in while I could.  
  
Luck was with me, though. Right before I found out I was pregnant with Justin, Mother had a stroke and died. Craig was inconsolable, and although I said and did the right things, I think he sensed that deep inside I was overjoyed. The cracks in our marriage had begun.  
  
I had hoped that with his mother gone, and a child of his own, Craig could change, that he would soften. There is no doubt in my mind that he loves his children, or at least he did when he first saw them. Sometimes at night I would get up and walk down the hall, to find him holding Justin by the window, whispering to him. It was the same when Molly was born. I wish they could remember those moments, because their father showed them little affection at any other time.  
  
Like his own mother, Craig had very clear ideas of what his children should be like. While another parent might attempt to coax them into the mold, however, my dear husband used a shoe horn.  
  
On Justin's fifth birthday, we invited a group of his friends from kindergarten over, and I managed to convince Craig to attend the party. When it came time to open the presents, Justin was overjoyed to find that his best friend Andy had given him the action figure he'd been begging for. He leaned over and kissed Andy on the cheek before opening the box.  
  
I watched Craig's hands tighten and his lip twitch, and he left the room. slamming the door behind him. The mood of the party was completely destroyed; some of the children even started to cry. My own anger certainly didn't help anything, and poor Justin couldn't figure out what he had done to make his father so upset.  
  
When they'd all gone home I found him lecturing our son. "You do not kiss other little boys. It's bad!"  
  
"Why?" Justin asked.  
  
"Because it just is! Boys kiss girls!"  
  
Our son just looked at his father for a long time, not saying anything, and then went into his room, shutting the door behind him.  
  
"Craig! He's five!" I hissed. "Just because you're homophobic doesn't mean you have to make him the same way!"  
  
"I am not homophobic! I don't care what they do, just as long as I don't have to see it. And I won't have my son thinking it's okay!"  
  
The mating call of the bigot. "I have nothing against..., I just think they should keep to themselves." His control over Justin tightened that day, and it was only made stronger by the fact that Justin truly did love his father and want to please him. But we are who we are.  
  
Craig has a gay son; he got exactly what he deserved. And if you think it's wrong for me to feel that way, I agree. That my son was in the end an instrument to hurt my husband is a terrible thing. But I can't help it. I felt avenged for all those years of coldness, of mistakes I didn't know I was making, all those biting little digs and put-downs he was so good at. At long last, he found something he could not bend to his will. I was able to take off my blinders at last and see him for who he really was; a petty, immature, small-minded man who would never change. He had come close to destroying Justin with that, and I still had one young child to protect. I failed my son, but I would not fail my daughter. I filed for divorce.  
  
So now again I'm in a situation where I must tolerate someone I don't like, only this time it's my turn to be the meddling mother-in-law. Which I don't want to be; I vowed to myself that I would never interfere in my children's relationships unless I felt they were in some kind of danger.  
  
There are things that my son may never experience as a gay man verses a straight one, and I regret that for him. Marriage, children. Not that he can't have those things, but they'll be harder to obtain if he ever wants them. What I don't believe, what I cannot ever totally accept, is that he must settle for what Brian is willing to give him.  
  
He tells me that he's happy, but there's a shadow in his eyes. I'm a mother, I see these things. I asked him once if Brian was seeing other men, and he got upset. "You don't understand how it works!"  
  
No, I don't understand. How many times have I heard that? But Justin, you're wrong. I do understand. I understand what it's like to give up your own dreams for a man who can never give you all of himself. Who tries to make you feel as if you should be obscenely grateful for the scraps he does toss your way now and then. Maybe he does love you; I believe that Craig loved me. But it took me a long time to realize the poison in that kind of love, and I was lucky to escape before there was nothing left of myself.  
  
You hide yourself from him, Justin. Lie to him, and lie to yourself, trying to be everything he wants you to be, hoping that it will be enough for him. I look at you sometimes and I see a stranger; a cold, bitter stranger and oh my god you look like Craig at those moments.  
  
I also see my son though, my Justin, inside of you. Maybe it was Chris Hobbes who made him run and hide; maybe it was Brian. Maybe it was both of them, but the real you is still there. You will never be happy, really happy, until you can find the courage to be that person, and find someone to love you as you are.  
  
I want that person to be Brian, because I know that you want it to be Brian. I don't hate him; he may have a few traits in common with Craig (which might be what you were drawn to) but he's not a bad man. Sometimes two very different roads can lead to the same destination, though. And that destination is a very lonely place. Trust me, I'm there. You are worth being loved, Justin. Loved completely.  
  
But I don't say any of the things to you, because I know you wouldn't listen if I did. You will walk your own road, and make your own mistakes, and break my heart a thousand times as you break your own.  
  
So I will stand back and let you go. Brian might not be my favorite person alive, but I will tolerate him. I will take my mother's advice and make a place for him.  
  
I used to think that he took advantage of you, but now I feel that it was the other way around. You went there knowing exactly what you wanted, you picked this man, and you tried to force him to give it to you. And there's so little you don't get when you're determined to have it. In those moments, I feel sorry for Brian. He really didn't know what he was getting into when he picked you up that night. He underestimated you, and he still does.  
  
Someone is going to end up with a broken heart sooner or later.  
  
Will it be you? Or him? 


End file.
